92 Chapter 3
Socialists would not merely interpret the world; their mission was to
change it. Proletarian tourists brought socialist propaganda to the peoples
through whose territories they traveled. Socialist construction demanded
that urban tourists devote some of their vacation elsewhere to campaigns
for collectivization, for literacy, for better roads, and for radio. Tourists ex-
plained the building of the Moscow metro and illuminated the stakes of the
trial of the counterrevolutionary Trotsky; throughout the 1930s, they brought
their political skills to help mobilize local populations for Soviet election
campaigns.^7
A purposeful vacation included the rational mobilization of the tourist’s
physical capabilities. Although tourism lagged behind the health spas and
even the physical culture movement in its medicalization, early tourism ad-
vocates had begun to develop a set of scientifi c principles to guide healthy
and rational tourism. Fresh air and moderated exercise aided the circulation
and restored balance to the organism. The state institute for kurort medical
science had begun to develop guidelines for appropriate itineraries and loca-
tions for various groups of tourists. Tourists needed to learn that the Cauca-
sus was a “nest of malaria” and that they should not travel without quinine.
If they returned home more tired or sick than before departure, the value of
travel would be nullifed. Therefore, like patients at a resort or rest home,
tourists needed to consult a doctor before leaving for a journey, a practice
often ignored. Sending unfi t tourists to alpine camps squandered state re-
sources: at one trade union camp in 1937, 15 percent of participants had to
leave because of ill health, and another 20 percent were not fi t enough to be
allowed to participate in the scheduled mountain treks. Doctors elsewhere
scandalously certifi ed epileptics and tourists with missing limbs as fully fi t
to engage in mountaineering.^8
Properly organized and rationally pursued, tourism also provided pleasure
and fun. Some tourist activists acknowledged that sometimes the movement
erred too much in the direction of purpose. “We need to admit outright that
sometimes there is scarcely any difference between a tourist outing and a po-
litical school, between an excursion and a mobilization brigade [ buksirnaia
brigada ].” If a tourist trip became burdened with too many assignments, too
many leafl ets to distribute, too much knowledge to acquire, the trip became
formalistic and uninteresting. Speaking at a seminar for tourist base leaders,
the chairman of the OPTE Central Council, Traskovich, emphasized the need
to pay attention to gaiety and cheerfulness. A 1934 cartoon, “On Foot on the
Volga,” illustrated the tedium that set in when the tourist plan included too
many lectures. Lectures entitled “The Zhiguli Past,” “The Environs of Samara,”- Leafl ets enumerating these tasks are in GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 1 (Society for Proletar-
ian Tourism materials, 1930), ll. 96–102; NSNM , no. 3 (1930), inside back cover; no. 4 (1937):
22; no. 12 (1939): 2. - V. E. Sochevanov, Rol' turizma v ratsional'nom otdykhe (Moscow, 1930), 23; NSNM ,
no. 3 (1931): 20; nos. 28–30 (1932): 24; Turist-aktivist , nos. 11–12 (1932): 32; NSNM , no. 13
(1935): 6; no. 4 (1938): 14; no. 4 (1939): 19.